Freed Army deserter says he has no regrets

San Diego 
Robin Long, an Army private court-martialed for desertion after he refused to fight in Iraq, said Friday that he has no regrets, even after spending the past year in the brig at the Miramar Marine Corps Air Station.

“I wouldn't do anything differently,” he said at a morning news conference outside the Veterans Museum and Memorial Center in Balboa Park.

Wearing both an Army camouflage hat and a T-shirt decorated with a large peace symbol, Long said his imprisonment was “the hardest thing I've ever had to do,” largely because it kept him away from his common-law wife and 3-year-old son in Canada.

“But I had to do what I felt was right.”

Long, 25, originally from Boise, Idaho, enlisted in 2003. He said he initially supported the war and was ready to fight, but grew convinced that it was “illegal and immoral.”

He said he started openly questioning the mission there, and in 2005 was the only member of his Fort Knox, Ky.-based Abrams tank unit ordered to join an infantry company in Iraq. He fled to Canada instead.

About 200 American war resisters have gone north of the border, an echo from Vietnam, when some 90,000 won refuge there. This time, the Canadian government has not been receptive. Long was ordered deported last summer.

At his court-martial, Long pleaded guilty to desertion and was sent to Miramar for what turned out to be a 371-day sentence. He was given a dishonorable discharge.

He said he received hundreds of supportive letters, some from as far away as South Africa, and was treated decently at the brig. “The other service members there understand what I did,” he said. “A lot of them realize the war is a mistake.”

He denied that he only fled to avoid getting shot at in Iraq. “Nobody wants to get shot at. Everybody is afraid. Anybody who says they aren't is full of it.” he said. “But that's not the point.

“I was afraid of what I'd have to participate in. I didn't believe in the mission. I didn't think I could live with myself if I wound up shooting people who didn't do anything to us.”

Long said he plans to attend school later this summer in San Francisco to be trained as a massage therapist. He hopes Renee, his common-law wife, and Ocean, his son, can join him.

Going to school and having an occupation may make it easier for him to persuade authorities in Canada to let him back into the country, Long said. As it stands, with his deportation and conviction, he probably won't be eligible to return for at least a decade.

In the meantime, he'll continue to speak out. “I don't plan on stopping any time soon,” he said.